TB-Market LLC (Dnipro), owning the discount shop chain in Ukraine and part of the ATB Corporation, is not intending to adjust its plan to open new stores for 2020, Director General of ATB Corporation Borys Markov has said in a statement. “We do not change the plans for the opening of stores in 2020 we are working according to plan. However, everything will depend on the depth of the economic crisis and the quarantine period. Our plan is to open 100 stores. We have a different cycle [than other retailers], 90% of the stores that we planned to open this year were purchased in 2019 and are in different state of preparation of documents, repair, or construction,” he said during the retail company anti-crisis management online webinar broadcasted on Tuesday, April 14.
According to Markov, 90% of ATB’s retail space is owned by the company, part of the vacant space is rented by the retailer, thus, when quarantine was introduced, the company negotiated with the landlords and its tenants about the rental benefits.
“We have 10% of the stores for rent and almost 100,000 square meters of vacant space that we lease. Thus, we operate responding to the current situation, without waiting for any decisions from Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry or laws, we negotiated with everyone and tried to make compromises,” he said.
Markov also said that one of the main challenges when quarantine was introduced was to cope with large fluctuations and falling in demand of buyers.
“We have seen catastrophic amplitude of demand and supply day by day, from 50% rise to 20% decline during the last week of March. Therefore, we mainly focused on maintaining the supply chain, stable uninterrupted work of almost 10,000 staff, which provides for the movement of trade, the availability of goods and imports,” the CEO of ATB Corporation said.
ATB Corporation is a group of companies involved in retail trade, production and sale of food.
